That is much less likely. Not unless large organizations are equipping fleets of machines with high end ATI video cards.

Render farms? cyber cafe chain stores targeting gamers? what if someone developed a toolbar and paid affiliates for hashing? not including transactions to blocks is not against the law and may be not worth it for a big enough network, being fees typically as low as they are.

We have a couple distinct problems here:

1 - we don't know for sure what's going on. For my money it's as likely that 200k gamers don't realise that their computers are blasting their fans way too much, as it's that someone just discovered a massive breakthrough in software/hardware hashing and/or decided to invest massively in it.

2 - not including transactions properly is, in itself, not against the law. If the system is not evolutionarily stable towards including transactions, then that was that. I'm afraid that a 0.3% premium for including transactions doesn't seem to cut it. "On the bright side", block reward will halven relatively soon and hopefully a bigger bitcoin economy will make this premium much bigger too.

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

thoughts?

What happens when no one sends a transaction, and there are none to include? Why couldn't the miner include 1 or 2 txns of his own in each block to pad it out to the required minimum? TL;DR, NO. Won't work.

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

thoughts?

What happens when no one sends a transaction, and there are none to include? Why couldn't the miner include 1 or 2 txns of his own in each block to pad it out to the required minimum? TL;DR, NO. Won't work.

If you're going this route, as a node, you could look at the number of transactions (maybe add up their fees) you have collected yourself from the network and require a certain percentage of that to be included in order for a given block to be accepted by you, say 20% for example. So if you have accumulated 20 transactions, a block would have to include at least 4 of these in order for you to accept it. This would guarantee the block to contain at least some fresh transactions.

I'm pretty sure this would have all kinds of implications and probably something prohibitive. It would certainly increase danger of chain-split.

If you're going this route, as a node, you could look at the number of transactions (maybe add up their fees) you have collected yourself from the network and require a certain percentage of that to be included in order for a given block to be accepted by you, say 20% for example. So if you have accumulated 20 transactions, a block would have to include at least 4 of these in order for you to accept it. This would guarantee the block to contain at least some fresh transactions.

I'm pretty sure this would have all kinds of implications and probably something prohibitive. It would certainly increase danger of chain-split.

I thought of this and posted it earlier in the thread with 10% minimum. Unfortunately this can lead to splits if transactions are not properly relayed. It probably wont happen often but it will happen. Rules could be made to overcome this, but all of this adds complexity and the possibility of unknown results. Having a minimum will just cause MM to include a repeating transaction or two of his own, not from the waiting list.

all the talks about pushing against this MM is just plain stupid. Stoppind 1tx blocks? Oh come on.You guys are asking exactly what bitcoin is the opposite of: Central authority.

There is no proof of botnet, there is no proof of any ill doing what so ever. Every miner is free to choose to include TXs or not to. TX fees will adjust for that *EVENTUALLY*.This could just be some HONEST miner who made a huge investment. This could be BFL testing all their singles, rigs etc. ie. for 800Ghash it takes "only" 1000 BFL Singles, or 40 mini rigs! *40*, not 40000, not 4000, but 40. The full blown rigs you would only need 16 of!16*30k$ = 480k $. Hardly a sizeable investment in grand scale of things.

Even if this MM has 4Thash, and does not include TXs, he is increasing the strength of BTC, as long as he doesn't exceed 50% and does something stupid. Even without including transactions.

But no, you guys are asking for Central Friggin' Authority. You want that? Well go use Paypal, and don't whine when they freeze your account for receiving too much in a week!Being under the whims of a central authority is a no go for you? Then don't demand that for bitcoin.

People demanding all kinds of actions against this MM are actually doing much more damage to BTC than the MM is. Infact, as i see, MM is increasing the overall strength of BTC. Only downside he is causing right now is slightly slower transactions.Sure, YOUR mining revenues for now are lower, but in the long term you will gain more. BTC price will eventually follow.

Every single Ghash added to the network makes just that much unlikely anyone could take over 50% of the network. When we reach a point where 1billion USD investment is not sufficient to take 50% of the network BTC starts being really strong. Currently at newegg list prices that purchases roughly as 4x7970 rigs 754Thash. You only need roughly 10mil $ right now to take 65-70% of the network.

Like it or not, but we do need the hashing strength of MM. He was capable of doing what, 1.4Thash? That's just 10%! And doesn't he keep the operation off most of the time?

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

thoughts?

He creates a single 1 satoshi transaction from one account he owns to another. Tada 2 tx block.

all the talks about pushing against this MM is just plain stupid. Stoppind 1tx blocks? Oh come on.You guys are asking exactly what bitcoin is the opposite of: Central authority.

There is no proof of botnet, there is no proof of any ill doing what so ever. Every miner is free to choose to include TXs or not to. TX fees will adjust for that *EVENTUALLY*.This could just be some HONEST miner who made a huge investment. This could be BFL testing all their singles, rigs etc. ie. for 800Ghash it takes "only" 1000 BFL Singles, or 40 mini rigs! *40*, not 40000, not 4000, but 40. The full blown rigs you would only need 16 of!16*30k$ = 480k $. Hardly a sizeable investment in grand scale of things.

Even if this MM has 4Thash, and does not include TXs, he is increasing the strength of BTC, as long as he doesn't exceed 50% and does something stupid. Even without including transactions.

But no, you guys are asking for Central Friggin' Authority. You want that? Well go use Paypal, and don't whine when they freeze your account for receiving too much in a week!Being under the whims of a central authority is a no go for you? Then don't demand that for bitcoin.

People demanding all kinds of actions against this MM are actually doing much more damage to BTC than the MM is. Infact, as i see, MM is increasing the overall strength of BTC. Only downside he is causing right now is slightly slower transactions.Sure, YOUR mining revenues for now are lower, but in the long term you will gain more. BTC price will eventually follow.

Every single Ghash added to the network makes just that much unlikely anyone could take over 50% of the network. When we reach a point where 1billion USD investment is not sufficient to take 50% of the network BTC starts being really strong. Currently at newegg list prices that purchases roughly as 4x7970 rigs 754Thash. You only need roughly 10mil $ right now to take 65-70% of the network.

Like it or not, but we do need the hashing strength of MM. He was capable of doing what, 1.4Thash? That's just 10%! And doesn't he keep the operation off most of the time?

Are we even sure this is just 1 party? No.

Do we have solid proof? No. We are basing our assumptions on a paste of an irc conversation. And by not including transactions, he can bring the network to a standstill as long as no other party makes a block. Please read your next post to make sure people can actually understand what you are saying.

All I know is that my normal daily mining earnings have crippled. I don't like it. I feel like I should whine. Really though, people here are right. Mining is a business, we should upgrade if we don't like what we're earning, etc. We can view this as a great motivation to find cheaper ways to pump out hashes. Sort of like an renewable energy crisis. "Somebody is using up 10% of the oil we're used to getting. We either stop him from getting the oil that could be ours, or we find a new way to power our stuff". Not greatest analogy, but meh.

That's why I got another card. Bring on the hashes.

I agree that a botnet mining network isn't fair. it isn't right. But it isn't our jobs to control that. BitCoin network will work it out itself (through our own hash pushes making the botnet worthless in ratio retrospect. There are more of us than there are of them.)

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

thoughts?

What happens when no one sends a transaction, and there are none to include? Why couldn't the miner include 1 or 2 txns of his own in each block to pad it out to the required minimum? TL;DR, NO. Won't work.

If you're going this route, as a node, you could look at the number of transactions (maybe add up their fees) you have collected yourself from the network and require a certain percentage of that to be included in order for a given block to be accepted by you, say 20% for example. So if you have accumulated 20 transactions, a block would have to include at least 4 of these in order for you to accept it. This would guarantee the block to contain at least some fresh transactions.

Someone can connect to your node from different IPs, fill your memory pool with TXes and then you'll orphan yourself.Of course it's not that easy, but I don't like this way. Also sometimes bitcoin just have to create 1tx blocks even when there are lots of TXes.

Can't we easily solve this problem by convincing all honest nodes to reject 1tx blocks?

If this happens, the MM has to include at least one other tx to make any BTC at all. This will force him to engineer some sort of solution to verifying transactions (supposedly he isn't verifying now due to the cost of managing the blockchain). Either he will give up or he'll start including transactions.

thoughts?

What happens when no one sends a transaction, and there are none to include? Why couldn't the miner include 1 or 2 txns of his own in each block to pad it out to the required minimum? TL;DR, NO. Won't work.

If you're going this route, as a node, you could look at the number of transactions (maybe add up their fees) you have collected yourself from the network and require a certain percentage of that to be included in order for a given block to be accepted by you, say 20% for example. So if you have accumulated 20 transactions, a block would have to include at least 4 of these in order for you to accept it. This would guarantee the block to contain at least some fresh transactions.

Someone can connect to your node from different IPs, fill your memory pool with TXes and then you'll orphan yourself.Of course it's not that easy, but I don't like this way. Also sometimes bitcoin just have to create 1tx blocks even when there are lots of TXes.

I don't like it either and I'm not suggesting to do this, I was merely improving a bit on the initial "idea".

I understand the "orphan attack on a node", but please explain why "sometimes bitcoin just have to create 1tx blocks even when there are lots of TXes" ? Right after startup?